


just one last night (until everything ends)

by Starling (StarDandere)



Category: AI: The Somnium Files (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, brief mention of Shoko being a bad parent, if you squint Kagami's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarDandere/pseuds/Starling
Summary: For a girl who’d already lost so much, this was the final straw.Post Annihilation Route; contains late-game spoilers





	just one last night (until everything ends)

The night lasted too long.

Sleep evaded Mizuki no matter how many sheep she counted, no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut, no matter how she buried herself beneath thin blankets, as if they were capable of smothering the far heavier grief in her chest.

The clock on her phone taunted her every time she dared reach out to check for a message. She needed something, anything. She would even have accepted Ota’s gushing about Iris, but now...

_ Why did all this happen? _

It was nearly 6 in the morning before her phone jolted to life, blinding her sleep-deprived eyes as she scrambled to pick it up. “Stupid Idiot” showed on the screen--an appropriately named contact for Date.

Her voice was strained with forced anger as she hit answer.  _ “Finally, _ I was beginning to think you  _ died _ or something,  _ idiot.” _ Her voice wavered halfway through; she wouldn’t admit it for real, but her mind  _ had _ been weaving together the worst case scenario as the night progressed.

On the other side, Date hesitated. Any other time, she might’ve teased him for buttdialing her, but before the thought could truly formulate, an unfamiliar voice reached her ears.

“Sorry to wake you, Mizuki. This is Aiba; we haven’t met, but I am Date’s... partner, I suppose you could say.”

Her lips pulled into a frown, uneasiness churning in her gut. “Oh, um, okay...?”

There was another long pause from “Aiba”. “I’m calling to inform you that Pewter is on his way to pick you up. From there, he will take you to Central Hospital, where--”

“Central Hospital?” Mizuki interrupted, voice shaking. The dread grew, and her phone made an odd noise as her grip on it tightened.

“Yes. Unfortunately, Date was injured in his confrontation with the Cyclops Killer. He is currently undergoing emergency surgery.”

_ What? _

Her last words to him played over and over in her head.  _ I want to be left alone. _ She was always saying that, wasn’t she?  _ Leave me alone, Date. Go away, Date. I don’t wanna talk to you, you’re so stupid, Date. _

Her voice caught in her throat. “Is, is he gonna--”

“The wounds shouldn’t be deadly,” Aiba assured. “However, I believe he is experiencing a great deal of shock. His body was bleeding for a period of time before receiving proper treatment.” Although they had never met, her honesty about the severity made Mizuki feel like she could trust this Aiba. After all, his partner had to know that Date was too annoying to die.

Right? He couldn’t die, not until he kept his promise to her.

She didn’t have long to fret about it. There was a knock at the door, and with Aiba’s confirmation that Pewter had arrived and her promptly hanging up, Mizuki rolled out of bed, still in the same outfit she’d worn the day before. The past day--heck, the past  _ week _ \--had been too hard and too busy; she was exhausted.

Pewter looked at her with sympathetic eyes as she opened the door. Though he dressed like a weirdo, he hardly acted of the sort, guiding her to his car with a gentle hand. No words were spoken; there was already an understanding between them. As he pushed the speed limit, she turned a blind eye, trying not to think about how much she wanted it to be Date in the driver’s seat so she could tease him for breaking the law.

She blinked and they were in the hospital’s parking lot. She jerked upright as she realized her tired body had dozed off unwillingly, and then shot a look at Pewter that was more of a pout than a scowl. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Don’t worry, we only arrived a few minutes ago. They haven’t cleared him from the ICU yet, so there was no point in rousing you quite yet. And even before that... Well, I believe there are some things I should explain.”

Without waiting for her to respond, Pewter pushed on to an explanation that was verbose in nature and probably could’ve been summarized as one point: Date had agreed to exploit some feature of the Psync machine during negotiations with the serial killer, and as a result, he was no longer in his own body, but rather in the body of Boss. But also apparently Boss wasn’t in Date’s body, since the killer had already swapped with her previously?

That last part was weird; it seemed that a lot had happened overnight.

During Pewter’s lengthy rant, her thoughts drifted back to Iris and Ota. ... How would they have reacted to a story like this? It was so surreal, and if it’d been fictional, it would’ve been something right up their alley...

Her heart clenched.

Finally, Pewter trailed off, coughing into his fist. “I think that about sums it up. I know it’s probably confusing, so I can explain further if need be?”

She shook her head; while it certainly  _ was _ confusing, she wasn’t stupid or anything. “As long as Date is okay, I don’t really care if he looks different.” She paused, something suddenly occurring to her. “Um, but did they capture the culprit?”

He nodded. “Aiba knocked him out and he was taken into custody. His fate will be determined once the higher ups get everything sorted out.”

A thick silence fell over the car; Mizuki wasn’t sure what to say, and it seemed that Pewter wasn’t either. She stared down at her phone, which was now scarred with thin cracks from the tightness of her grip earlier. Date had given her this phone a year ago, and though he claimed it was something from her Daddy, she knew that this model was one of the cheaper ones--something that would better fit Date’s salary than Daddy’s.

She never did thank him for it.

She watched the minutes drag by, resisting the urge to check NILE when she knew there would be no messages from her two best friends waiting--just days old messages that would serve to remind her that they were gone forever.

“Mizuki.” Pewter’s voice pulled her from sinking into the abyss of her broken heart, a hand reaching over and settling on her shoulder. “I've been given word that he's out of surgery. Would you like to go in?”

She nodded and exited the car with hurried fumbling. She was desperate to confirm that he was safe. She quickly pulled ahead of Pewter, who called after her to slow down. She ignored him.

She burst into the hospital lobby, earning a number of stares from her pounding feet echoing off the silent walls. She ignored them as well, looking for the front desk to demand guidance to Date. She quickly located it and ran over, slamming her hands down in front of the receptionist.

“I wanna see Date! Tell me his room or I’ll-!” She didn’t get far into her threat before Pewter caught up to her, catching her by the shoulder and halting her in her tracks.

“Please, calm down; you’ll have better luck if I talk to them.” Stupid adults. They were always looking down on people younger than them. She glared daggers into the admittedly frightened receptionist, and in her overwhelmed emotions, her mind was blocked out from Pewter’s hushed whispers towards the hospital staff.

Just when she was about to run off to look for the room herself, Pewter returned. “Okay, they cleared you to visit. I told them you were family, since that’s all they’re allowing visitation at the moment. I had wanted to join you, but...”

Mizuki shook her head. “See, this is why you and Date aren’t as cool as Boss; she just blackmails the doctors to get whatever she wants. You could learn from her.”

Pewter gave her a strained smile. “I suppose I could. But anyway, please, go ahead. I’ll wait out here.” She turned to leave, but he quickly spoke again. “Oh, but before you do, please, take this.” He handed her a small orb. As she turned it over in her hand, she realized it was Date’s fake eye--an edgy golden thing that she would poke fun at him for. Seriously, why didn’t he just get one that matched his other eye? Weirdo.

“Oookay then.” She reluctantly pocketed it. It felt weird to hold onto something that had been in someone’s eye socket at some point. “Why do I need this...?”

“Just trust me.” That was his only explanation, and he turned away to approach one of the officers waiting in the lobby.

She made her way up the stairs and into the wards, eyes trailing along and reading the plates on the walls to find the room he was in. She found the number attached to a name that wasn’t Date’s; Shizue Kuranushi. Cautiously, she poked into the room.

As Pewter had explained, within Date’s room was Boss’ body. Mizuki’s lip quivered as she entered the room, closing the door behind her and approaching the bed. Boss’ body didn’t react. The machines on the bedside beeped at a constant, slow pace.

“Date?” She called out, placing a hand on her--his(?) shoulder. No response. She tightened her grip and shook. Nothing.

“Careful, you wouldn’t want to open his stitches,” a voice said, and she jerked in surprise, looking around the empty room for the source.

When she found no one, she shakily responded, “Who’s there?!”

There was a sudden movement in her pocket, and Date’s eye fell out, covered in a clear squishy gel. It landed on the bed, and solidified into the shape of a hamster.

She couldn’t help it; she screamed.

The eye-hamster-thing didn’t seem surprised. “I apologize for startling you, Mizuki. I suppose it’s time for a more formal introduction, since Date continuously put it off.” Its somewhat familiar voice sounded annoyed. “I am Aiba, an artificial intelligence that resides in Date’s eye.”

_ “You’re _ Aiba?!” Even though she was shouting, Date didn’t stir.

“Yes. I’m sure you remember all those times Date’s spoken to himself with no one else around.” She did; it happened so frequently that Mizuki used it as ammunition against him. “He was always just responding to something that I said. Inside his head, of course. I also provide him with a variety of functions that aid him in his job, including acting as his phone.”

“Oh.” That made a lot of sense, actually. That explained why Aiba’s call had come in through Date’s phone number. It also explained why she’d never seen Date with a phone.

“Anyway.” Aiba turned towards Date. “It looks like his surgery went well. His vitals seem stable. However...” She paused. “Scans of his brain are showing abnormalities in his EEG. It’s possible that he is comatose.”

Mizuki felt her chest grow tight. A wave of intense loneliness crashed down on her. “Will, will he wake up?”

“Time will tell. However, Date isn’t the type to give up.”

They sat in silence for a long time. Mizuki couldn't decide if she wanted to watch over him for signs of him waking up; him having Boss’ face made her feel disconnected. For an already emotionally troubled preteen, she couldn't process the complex emotions churning in her gut. So, instead, she stared out the window at the drizzling rain, her fingers curled around the too-soft hand that was now Date’s.

Eventually, the rain let up, and it was at that point that a worry slipped from her lips. “If he doesn't wake up, who’s gonna look after me? I mean, I'm fine on my own, but I know adults are weird and would make me have a guardian until he wakes up, right?” When Aiba didn't answer, she continued on. “Maybe I could stay with Hitomi for a while; she probably needs some support too, so...”

Still no response. She hadn't really needed one, but she still wanted  _ someone _ to give her guidance. So, she turned to Aiba.

She met Mizuki’s gaze, but the AI eyeball had no expressions to give. “Hitomi... Hitomi is dead.”

She felt every muscle in her body tense as her stomach dropped. She couldn't speak. It wasn't aphonia claiming her voice again, but the shock was so intense that she wouldn't have been surprised if it  _ had  _ temporarily returned.

After a long minute, she finally croaked out, “What? No, that's--she couldn't be.”

Aiba continued. “The culprit captured her before we caught him, and... He used her as a hostage to bargain with Date only to... remotely off her once he got what he wanted. I'm sorry.”

Mizuki jerked to her feet. Before she could restrain herself, her arms were on Date’s shoulders, shaking him as hard as she could without hurting him. “Date! Date, wake up! Tell me that Hitomi’s alive! You saved her, right?! C’mon! Date, please!”

As if responding, Date’s monitor roared to life, beeping frantically. She stopped shaking, glancing to the machines to attempt to read them.

Aiba spared her the effort. “His brain waves and heart rate are increasing. Perhaps your words reached him--?”

Before she could say anything further, a handful of doctors and nurses rushed into the room. One quickly ushered Mizuki away from the bedside, trying to direct her out of the room.

Naturally, she resisted. “Hey, wait! No!” The nurse that had grabbed her yelped in pain as she pushed him away, his back roughly slamming into the edge of a table. His colleagues rushed over, two replacing him and grabbing an arm each, still trying to get Mizuki out.

They were trying to comfort her and explain that they needed her to leave, but she  _ couldn’t. _ Date needed her, and she needed him!

Then, the frantic beeping ceased, the droning flat line that she never wanted to hear--even though she’d never heard it in person, she certainly knew what it meant from media.

“Date! Date!” she yelled past the two bodies blocking her view. She pushed enough that she could glimpse past them and see one of the doctors beginning chest compressions while another was strapping an oxygen mask to his face.

The nurses pushed back and she lost sight of him. Knowing that the two would soon succeed in pushing her out of the room, she did the only thing her panicked mind could think of; she dropped her weight and threw them off balance.

“I’m not leaving! I won’t get in the way, so just--just save him!” She suddenly became aware of the tears cascading down her face and the way her voice choked as she begged for Date’s life to be spared.

Reluctantly, they left her on the ground and returned to the bedside, drawing the curtain around Date’s bed to cut her off from the view. She suddenly felt small and alone. She was reminded of being a young girl, desperate for her mother’s love, but Shoko would just huff and storm away when Mizuki threw a tantrum.

_ Date... Don’t leave me too. _

The drone eventually stopped, but it wasn’t replaced by the steady beeping that had preceded this turn of events. A heavy silence filled the room, the hospital staff murmuring to each other before one emerged from the other side of the divider.

“He’s gone.”

...

She found herself out in the hallway, sitting on a cold bench. She stared at the opposing wall. Her head hurt. She wanted to feel Date’s warm arms wrapped around her again. She wanted him to roll his eyes and throw that stupid jacket of his over her shoulders and gripe that she was getting snot all over it, so it was  _ hers _ now.

But instead, his murderer-- _ everyone’s _ murderer--was prancing around in his body while he himself was...

Aiba crawled up the bench and onto her clenched fists. The pressure was like a hand, and it was almost comforting. But Mizuki didn’t feel better. In fact, there was probably only one thing at this point that could.

“Where are they keeping that guy,” she muttered darkly, “I want to kill him.”


End file.
